But which lottery in the world has the best odds? Who cares how much you win, as long as you win division 1 you will win heaps anyway. In Australia we have The Pools which draws 6 + 1 supp from 38 numbers and the odds of hitting the 6 from 38 are 2.6m to one but most other world lotteries i can see are in the hudreds of millions to one. Pfft, i sure know which one i would rather try.

The best lottery odds in the world would go to one of the many ‘Pick 3′ games out there. But with odds of 1:1000 for just a $500 jackpot – you may as well be playing a slot machine. And Pick 4 games aren’t much better.

But the thing is you’ve already thought about the odds and prize level, and chosen the right game for you. Most players haven’t taken that step, or don’t know how to

Around 50% for the prize fund is not uncommon for a lottery. But some pay out more – e.g. the Irish lottery company return 55%, or the Texas Lottery is 63%.

The amount returned in prizes can be a useful factor in deciding which game to play. At least in theory anyway. Because it gets complicated fast.

It can vary by game as well as the lottery company. And of course the percentage allocated to each prize tier also varies greatly between games too.

So if a game paid 60% in prize money but that simply meant the ‘Match 3′ prizes were twice as big as another game, would it really be better? What if the jackpot was 10 times harder to win than the other game which only paid out 50%?

It’s also not quite as easy as that.

You can’t buy tickets online from lottery companies around the world – so you’d have to use a 3rd party service to do that. Which means paying a lot more for your tickets – a factor likely to outweigh any payout percentage differences.

It depends on your Strategy really. But overall it’s still going to be the chances of winning the jackpot that matters most of all to most players.

After 25 years of $20 a week, losing a total of a new Camry ($26,000), but we did win $5 & got rolled for it. Yes, we with all the degrees still believe in Santa Claus. Alas, I’ll still play as I don’t need the $20 a week & who knows, maybe the pols. won’t steal it from our kids.